verb trans. and refl. (venery).—To masturbate. Also subs. = an act of masturbation. Known sometimes as KEEPING DOWN THE CENSUS. [Latin, fricare = to rub.]
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—To bob; to box the Jesuit [‘St. Omer’s lewdness,’ Marston, ‘Scourge’ (1598)]; to chuff; to chuffer; to claw (FLORIO); to digitate (of women); to eat (or get) cock-roaches; to bring up (or off) by hand; to fight one’s turkey (Texan); to finger or finger-fuck (of women); to friggle (FLORIO); to fuck one’s fist (of men); to fetch mettle (GROSE); to handle; to indorse; to jerk, play, pump, toss, or work off; to lark; to milk; to mount a corporal and four; to mess, or pull about; to play with (schoolboys’), to rub up; to shag; to tickle one’s crack (of women); to dash one’s doodle; to touch up; to play paw-paw tricks (GROSE); to wriggle (old). For foreign synonyms, see WRIGGLE.
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Fricciare … to FRIG, to wriggle, to tickle.
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie. Branler la pique, TO FRIG.
1728. BAILEY, Dictionarium Britannicum, s.v. FRIG, to rub.
c. 1716–1746. ROBERTSON OF STRUAN, Poems, 83. So to a House of office … a School-Boy does repair, To … fr—— his P—— there.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue., s.v.
